CHAPTER 4

Arthur ignored the scream. He held Flora's small waist firmly, making it a fulcrum as his hips began to brutally and quickly slam into Flora's warm opening under the pouring water. The luxurious bathroom was instantly filled with the echo of Flora's screams of both pleasure and pain, blending with the sound of splashing water scattering onto the floor. Twenty minutes passed in that exhausting position until Arthur groaned heavily, again spurting his second seed deep inside Flora's passage.

After letting out his desire, Arthur came out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist, leaving Flora crying limply in the water. Outside the room, three sexy female maids in skimpy clothes who were tasked with managing the penthouse were already standing waiting. They stared hungrily at Arthur's broad chest and six-pack stomach, which were wet from the remaining bathwater.

"Do you want it?" Arthur asked coldly, noticing his maids' slutty stares. The three of them nodded unconsciously with sparkling eyes.

Arthur chuckled disdainfully. He stepped forward, grabbed the back of their necks, and wildly devoured the lips of the three maids one by one alternately. His hand even roughly squeezed the chest of the maid with the most prominent one until the woman moaned loudly in the corridor.

"But not now. I am not in the mood to sleep with cheap bitches like you. Go inside and take care of my woman in there. Make sure she is dressed neatly," Arthur ordered absolutely, pushing them away. Even though they were offended by being called bitches, the three women could only obey for the sake of abundant money from the mafia.

Exactly at nine in the morning, Arthur himself escorted Flora home, escorted by Doni, his right-hand man, using a luxury black SUV. Throughout the journey cutting through the Manhattan streets, Flora only remained silent, staring blankly out the window, completely destroyed.

Once the car stopped in front of the gate of the Vance family's luxury residence, Arthur gripped Flora's chin firmly, forcing her to look into his pair of sharp, intimidating eyes.

"Remember what I said earlier, Flora. Be prepared, because I will definitely take responsibility and come to marry you. You are mine," Arthur said with an absolute tone full of confidence.

Flora weakly slapped the man's hand away, then got out of the car with a staggering, powerless step without giving the slightest answer. She walked into her house, thinking her hellish suffering had ended, without her knowing that a hidden camera slyly installed by Vanessa had recorded her entire bed activity with Arthur completely—ready to become a time bomb that would destroy her life.

Since that hellish day, Flora Vance had changed completely. There were no more sweet smiles or crisp laughter from the usually cheerful Senior Editor. She locked herself in her spacious room in an elite New York neighborhood, refusing to see the outside world. Flora became incredibly quiet and sensitive. Every time her bedroom door was knocked on, her body would jolt in fear, consumed by flashes of the trauma from Arthur's brutal rape that kept looping in her brain like a broken cassette.

The climax occurred this afternoon. The piling despair made Flora's sanity collapse completely. Inside her tightly locked bathroom, she smashed a glass cup onto the marble floor, then picked up its sharpest shard. Her violently trembling hand prepared to scratch the object right over the pulse of her wrist.

"FLORA, DON'T!" BANG!

Vanessa, her best friend who had come to visit and grew suspicious because Flora had locked herself in for too long, managed to forcefully break down the bathroom door at the crucial second. She lunged forward, harshly slapping the glass shard away from Flora's hand until it flew far into the corner of the room.

"Let go, Nessa! Let me die! I am already dirty, I am no longer worthy of Devon!" Flora's crying broke out instantly. Her body sank onto the cold marble floor, hugging her knees hysterically and trembling violently.

Vanessa embraced Flora's body, putting on a perfectly neat face of concern to cover the satisfaction in her heart. "Flo, calm down... talk to me. What actually happened that night?"

Under the pressure of her shattered soul, Flora finally spilled all of her dark secrets. "That night... I was kidnapped, Nessa. A monster named Arthur Sterling... he dragged me and took my purity very brutally at a hotel. I hate him! I hate my own body! My wedding is only days away, but that man has destroyed me..." Flora screamed sorrowfully, burying her swollen face in Vanessa's shoulder.

Flora never knew that behind the half-open bedroom door, Devon Cross was standing.

The man had just arrived to visit his fiancée and accidentally overheard the entire horrific confession from beginning to end. Devon's body instantly stiffened, his handsome face went pale, and his chest rumbled violently, holding back a strike of extraordinary pain. The reality that the woman he so deeply adored had been brutally defiled by the most feared mafia boss in New York tore his heart to shreds until nothing was left.

Realizing Devon's presence at the threshold, Flora instantly froze. Her sobbing stopped, replaced by the greatest fear of her life: Devon knew she was no longer a virgin. Flora closed her eyes tightly, bracing herself to receive insults, anger, or rejection from her groom-to-be.